How should Bible-believing Gentiles observe the Sabbath?

 

Day of rest. Exodus 20:9-10 – “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.” No livelihood or household work of any kind may be done on the seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday).

 “Preparation day”. For these reasons, Jews have made it a habit to carry out and prepare necessities for the Sabbath on Friday – the “preparation day” (John 19:14,31; Matt 27:62). 

There seems to be an exception mentioned in Exodus 12:16b – “…no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.” 

However, “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day” (Ex 35:3). Starting a fire was hard work in ancient times.

      No buying and selling. “And if the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the sabbath” (Neh 10:31a). If one watches television, he or she is supporting the people who work on the Sabbath, including the businesses that sell their products through advertisements.

            Keep the day holy.  “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex 20:8). We can keep it holy “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words” (Isa 58:13).

            No traveling. “See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day” (Ex 16:29).

            Sabbath-keepers, though, may go on a “sabbath day’s journey.” “Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey” (Acts 1:12).

“Sabbath day’s journey”. This is around 1,000 yards (2,000 cubits – Josh 3:4, Num 35:4-5). It is the distance one may travel on the Sabbath without breaking the law (based on the space between the tents of the people and the holy tabernacle in the wilderness). The idea behind the law was that every person in the camp (later towns and cities) should be close enough to the center of worship without having to travel a great distance on the Sabbath.

 

Q:        A thousand yards only? My church is about half an hour’s drive away!

 

A:        There are two lines of thought on this. One is that a person in a vehicle today may travel a long distance, because he or she simply has to step on the gas pedal or sit back while somebody else drives. The other standpoint is to keep the Sabbath day’s journey teaching strictly.  So, it boils down to a matter of personal decision.

 

Q:        Christ went to synagogues on the Sabbath.

 

A:        True. “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read” (Luke 4:16).

Many synagogues. “By New Testament times synagogues were very numerous and popular” (Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary); “…there was in every town of Palestine, and even in smaller places, at least one synagogue. In the post-Talmudic period it was required that a synagogue should be built wherever ten Israelites were dwelling together. In the larger towns there was a considerable number of synagogues” (The New Unger's Bible Dictionary).

In the first century, there was most probably a synagogue within a Sabbath day’s journey of everybody in a Jewish community. 

 

Q:        If I do not go, I would be violating the instruction to join a “holy convocation” on the Sabbath!

 

A:        In Leviticus 23:3 (“Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.”) and similar other passages, the word “convocation” is misinterpreted.

“Convocation” (”call out”). “Convocation” has been translated from Hebrew “OT:4744 miqra' (mik-raw'); from OT:7121; something called out… (New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary, 1994), and as translated in the “KJV – assembly, calling, convocation, reading.” The misinterpretation stems from miqra; supposedly meaning “assembly”.

            Dictionaries define “call out vt (15c) 1: to summon into action” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary); and “call-out, noun. a summons into service or for some special duty or purpose” (World Book Dictionary).

            Miqra’, therefore, is a “call out:” for the people to do something – together at the same time, but not necessarily in the same place.

 

Q:        The Israelites did not assemble at the tabernacle in the wilderness?

 

A:        Tabernacle too small. The tabernacle in the wilderness was small; it “was in the form of a tent 10 cubits wide and 30 cubits long” (Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1986), or just 5 yards by 15 yards.

It was too small for some two million Israelites (“about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children” – Ex 12:37; a man is described as 20-60 years old – Lev 27:1-3b; plus all the women, the young, and the elderly). Thus, miqra could not mean “assembly”.

A call-out to rest. The term “holy convocation” is found 16 times in the KJV (Ex 12:16; Lev 23:3,7,8,21,24,27,35,36; Num 28:18,25,26; 29:1,7,12); and in all instances it is followed by the phrase “ye shall do no work”. It becomes clear that “holy convocation” means a “sacred call out” for people to rest, not to assemble, on the Sabbath!

 

Proof-text. The women disciples waited until Sunday before anointing the body of Christ after the cucifixion on Friday. They did not assemble on Saturday, they rested.  “And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment…  Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them” (Luke 23:56; 24:1).

 

Saturday night assembly. In fact, the first Christians, who were also Jews, rested first on the Sabbath, before assembling on the evening of Saturday, when the “first day of the week” (Sunday) had already begun. “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight” (Acts 20:7).

The “first day of the week” began after sunset of the seventh-day Sabbath, that is, Saturday evening, based on Genesis 1:5b (“And the evening and the morning were the first day.”)

 

Q:        What happens now to the teaching in Hebrews 10:25?

 

A:        “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”  

            House-church. Christ said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20).

Sabbatarians can keep the Sabbath with their families and brethren in their homes. Paul said, “Likewise greet the church that is in their house…” (Rom 16:5a; cf. 1 Cor 16:19).

Besides, worship gatherings do not have to be done on the day of the Sabbath. This is a misconception among many Sabbath-keepers who were formerly Sunday-keeping evangelicals. They simply transfer their day of worship from Sunday to Saturday. However, worship may be done on any day of the week.

 

Did Christ abolish God’s law?

 

In Paul’s writings, especially in his epistle to the Romans, some passages seem to say that God’s law should no longer be observed: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom 10:4).

The grace of God, rather than the law, he also said, now holds sway over believers. “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14).

Moreover, Paul stated that, in effect, there is no salvation in the law: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight” (Rom 3:20a).

He even further declared that, when we become members of the body of Christ, we are released from the law. “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:6). 

The law upheld.

However, Paul himself said the law is still in force! “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Rom 3:31).

What is even more, the very people whom God considers acceptable to Him are those who obey the law. “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified” (Rom 2:13).

Was Paul contradicting himself? Was he guilty of doublespeak – saying one thing and meaning another?

Tough topics misunderstood.

The apostle Simon Peter observed that Paul was sometimes misunderstood: “…our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:15a-16).

Did you get that? Some of the subjects Paul wrote about were hard to understand!

Unchanging validity

Christ Himself affirmed the continuing validity of God’s law. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matt 5:17-18).

According to the Son of God Himself, God’s law will remain unchanged and continue to be in force until all prophecies, including those of the end-times, shall have been realized to the last letter.

The writer of the book of Hebrews, thought to be also Paul himself, points out that the new covenant has not completely replaced the old covenant. “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13).

The old covenant may be nearly obsolete, but it is still in place. For example, God had said that “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev 17:11). It still does; the law has not changed – only now it is the blood of Christ, and not the blood of sacrificial animals, that atones for the sins of men.

Key to eternal life.

Keeping the law of God, Christ said, is basic and instrumental to gaining eternal life.

“And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt 19:16-17).

The commandments are key to being admitted into the kingdom of heaven. Christ told John in his visions of Revelation: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev 22:14).

King Solomon taught that obeying God’s law is mankind’s principal obligation. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc 12:13).

Sentences suspended

So, why did Paul say that we are no longer under the law? Fausset's Bible Dictionary notes that the law “convicted of sin and was therefore ‘a ministration of condemnation’ and ‘of death…’ (2 Cor 3:7,9).”

In other words, under the Old Covenant, if anyone broke a commandment, judgment, the most severe of which was death, was usually meted immediately upon the transgressor without much ado.

However, in Colossians 2:14, Paul very clearly said that Christ has blotted “out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.”

With His teachings of love, Christ suspended the inexorable punishments under the law, even death, which was very much against and contrary to us. 

The idea becomes quite clear in Romans 8:2 – “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Christ has liberated us from the law which called for merciless punishments on lawbreakers. We see this illustrated in some New Testament incidents.

The adulteress.

In John 8:3-11, the scribes and Pharisees caught a woman in the act of adultery, but, before stoning her to death according to the law (Deut 22:22), they brought her to Christ.

“So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her… And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

Christ forgave the woman, thus saving her from immediate death. Nevertheless, adultery is still a sin (“sin no more”, He said, referring to the commandment in Exodus 20:14). Christ therefore affirmed, even if indirectly, that God’s law is still in force – but tempered by love and mercy under the New Covenant.

The eunuch.

Under the Old Covenant law, “No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD” (Deut 23:1, NASU).

Yet, in Acts 8:36-38, the evangelist Philip baptized the eunuch from Ethiopia to become a member of the Christian church. “And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.”

So, what Paul was trying to say was, Christ set aside the harsh punishments under the law that were against and contrary to us – giving transgressors the chance to repent and return to God – but otherwise God’s law, i.e., its basic precepts and principles, still stands!